Thing of the Day

Weasel Walter alert part
two: Weasel on Cardiacs

June
24th 2011

Legendary stalwart of
underground drum mayhem Weasel Walter is
touring the UK this week - see yesterday's Thing Of The Day for
details. Earlier this year, he contributed to Moe Staiano and
Dominique Leone's collaborative fundraising San Fransico gig for Tim
Smith of Cardiacs, with this neat review/testimonial:

If the band Cardiacs are regarded as some kind of hidden
treasure in their U.K. motherland, well, their reputation is pretty
much nonexistent in the U.S. A true cult band by definition, those who
know are RABID, and I am one of them.

About a year ago I distinctly remember some random person on the
internet commenting to me, "You've never heard Cardiacs?" Uh, no! Well,
I hadn't. Believe me you, I am a professional, compulsive music geek. I
have spent every waking moment since I was a small child listening,
playing, pondering or researching music. I know more music trivia than
anyone should know, even minutia about bands and musicians I couldn't
give a fuck about. For example, to this day I can rattle off the
personnel to the band Haircut 100 without stuttering. See? Yet, despite
the fact that Cardiacs sprung peripherally from the hyper-documented
late '70s U.K. punk/post-punk culture explosion, I had never seen or
heard a mention of them until that fateful moment.

I don't remember what specifically I heard by them - probably something
from the era when they still wore wacky makeup - but at the time I
quickly wrote them off. The same way I wrote off, uh, John Coltrane.
Sparks. Magma. You know, other benign artistic nonentities. Ha ha ha.
Now, it was obvious they were up to something, but whatever it was
didn't quite click with me at first meeting. I do remember that what I
heard seemed a bit overly quirky and self-conscious to the extent that
I was turned off it. Still the name stuck in my craw, like almost all
band names do.

Now, it might be easy for jaded music snobs to hear this song and
snort, "Uh, sounds like the Pixies, whatever." But that's too glib, too
snide. It is pop. It is dark. The composition has a tendency towards
having a beat or two lopped off a measure here and there, but there's
something unnervingly, definitively, emotionally apocalyptic about
"Signs" that deftly sidesteps the comparison. Oh, yeah, and, by the
way, this is the only song I know of in their ouevre which sounds
remotely like this. It is the exact inverse of their early, hammy
schoolboy hijinks. "Signs" is a devastating, surreal threnody in four
minutes time.